Cooked, peeled shrimp available to consumers are prepared in a high volume processing environment. The processing can either take place on board a ship immediately after the shrimp are caught or later when the shrimp are on snore. The shrimp are first boiled until reaching an ideal temperature assuring that the shrimp are completely cooked. After leaving the boiler the hot shrimp are fed through a shell breaking machine and a peeling machine where the shell is removed from the flesh of the shrimp creating the final product for market.
Ideally the shell breaking machine and shrimp peeler would only remove the shell of the shrimp, leaving all the flesh to be sold at market. However, in reality the shrimp peeling machine removes a certain amount of flesh when removing the shell, thereby reducing the amount of final product produced per shrimp caught.
The applicants have identified a disadvantage of the processing method described above, namely that as the shrimp leave the boiler and move to the peeling machine the shell of the shrimp cools slightly at a rate faster than a cooling of the flesh creating a temperature differential between the shell and the flesh. This temperature differential increases the amount of flesh removed along with the shells, resulting in fewer pounds of cooked, peeled shrimp for the market per pound of shrimp caught.
Applicants have also noted that when shrimp arrive at the peeling machine at a relatively high temperature, the efficiency of the peeling machine (i.e. the amount of flesh removed along with the shells) is reduced.
FIG. 1 shows a known processing arrangement for the preparation of shrimnp. The first step in preparing the shrimp for market is to thoroughly cook the shrimp in cooking unit 1. When the cooking process is complete, the shrimp are removed from cooking unit 1 via conveyer 2. The shrimp leaving cooking unit 1 are generally in a temperature range of 70-80.degree. C. Conveyer 2 transports the cooked shrimp to a peeling machine 3 consisting of a shell breaker 5 and a peeler 4, where the cooked shrimp have their shells broken and removed leaving the final product for market at the outlet of peeling machine 3. While on conveyor 2 being transported to the peelinrg machine 3, the cooked shrimp are exposed to ambient temperature conditions in the processing facility which may cause the shrimp to cool slightly. During this slight cooling, the shell of the shrimp cools more rapidly than the flesh causing a temperature differential of approximately 10-30.degree. C. between the shell and the flesh of the shrimp. This temperature differential and the relatively high temperature of both the shell and the flesh reduces the efficiency of the peeling machine (i.e., more flesh is removed with the shells).